In I'll Be Lifted Up, two women become friends while in the midst of their failing marriages: Annie has lost her love for her husband after the death of their baby girl, and Sarah is struggling to accommodate a husband who is abusive. The two women subsequently help each other through their respective divorces. For Annie, there are lovers and the desire to remarry, along with the slow-in-coming realization that her choice of partners has been unwise, but Sarah has decided to not date until she is completely rid of her ex-husband and his harassment, which escalates throughout the novel, drawing the two women closer, and culminates in the kidnapping of Sarah's children by their father.

Tashi came toddling in from the back hallway, dragging her blanket. When she saw it was me, she hurried over, and I lifted her up onto my hip and circled her with my arms. "Daddy broke down the door," she said, sounding more astonished than frightened.

"I know it. Your mom just told me."

Sarah turned back to cleaning up from lunch; moving quickly but haphazardly, she put the milk and juice away and gathered up the dirty plates, her long, blond braid shifting with each sharp, hasty move, then returning to the center of her back. "I'm almost finished here," she said, closing a cupboard with a sharp click. "This is part of my new leaf--cleaning up right away, before things get out of hand."

--from I'll Be Lifted Up, a novel